01
Confessions
Why this pick
Matches the school setting, icy moral cruelty and deliberately stylised escalation, but trades Hasumi’s glib charm for a carefully structured, emotionally punishing revenge thriller.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE2012 2h 9m JPN
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Lesson of the Evil
HorrorThriller
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Lesson of the Evil, try these.
01
02
The World of Kanako
Why this pick
Its saturated, abrasive style and increasingly ugly portrait of authority echo Lesson of the Evil’s gleeful bad taste and contempt for respectable appearances.
03
Cold Fish
Why this pick
For another Japanese descent into extreme violence led by a charismatic predator: it shares Miike’s black-comic nerve, escalating menace and fascination with ordinary façades hiding monstrosity.
04
Battle Royale
Why this pick
The school environment, ruthless social satire and shocking eruptions of violence make this a natural companion, with an urgent ensemble rather than one predator’s point of view.
05
Cure
Why this pick
A much quieter but equally chilling study of evil beneath everyday surfaces, using controlled performances and procedural tension instead of Lesson of the Evil’s flamboyant escalation.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
An English teacher named Seiji Hasumi (Hideaki Itō) is loved by his students and respected by his peers. He graduates from Harvard University with an MBA, and works at Morgenstern, a European investment bank, for two years. Hasumi returns to Japan to pursue high school teaching. However, his outward charm masks his true nature. In reality, Hasumi is a Psychopathy#Sociopathy who is unable to feel empathy for other human beings. Specifically, he has a severe antisocial personality disorder. Having killed both of his parents and his former tutor at the age of fourteen, Hasumi turns into a fiendishly clever killer. During his time in the States, Hasumi meets a partner in crime, an American named Dave, who thinks he shares the same "hobby" as Hasumi – killing people for fun. The two can be seen carrying buckets full of human blood, bones, and organs somewhere, giving off the notion that they committed numerous murders while working together. Hasumi eventually kills his partner by knocking him out and burning him alive inside a barrel, stating that while Dave enjoys killing for fun, Hasumi does not.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Takayuki Yamada
Tetsuro Shibahara
Mitsuru Fukikoshi
Masanobu Tsurii
Shota Sometani
Keisuke Hayami
Kento Hayashi
Masahiko Maejima
Fujiko Kojima
Misaki Abe
Fumi Nikaido
Reika Katagiri
Erina Mizuno
Miya Yasuhara
Hirona Yamazaki
Yuuki Tsukahara